A complete list of all the Drummer scripting verbs and the docs, as Markdown files. Lots of other good stuff on the new DocServer site on GitHub. Another great OPML application, this time one that allows you to author man pages in an outline. Very easy to work on and publish. #
Ken Smith, our English professor advisor on outliners, sees how the new DocServer can be used to present any kind of writing, not just "man pages." He's absolutely right. There's nothing in there that limits its uses to only tech stuff. Intentional. In fact I wrote a post about this on 9/28 of last year. #
I still wish Amazon would sell app-accessible storage to users. It would be as big a breakthrough as S3 was in 2006. Actually it'd be more like the introduction of the floppy disk to the Apple II in 1978 or so. Really it's amazing how long this niche has been left unfilled. User-owned storage that their apps can use, provided by Amazon please. It has to be Amazon. I understand finally that's what all the web3 michegas is about. The Blockchain vendors insist they have the solution to this festering sore of a problem. Of course tehcnologically -- far from it. But for some reason Amazon has been unwilling to fill the need. I think rushing to one form of storage rather than providing a cloneable API is foolish. We can have it all, and we should insist on it. #Have you ever had a doctor willing to work with you on an appointment so you don't have to waste a half a day because they weren't willing to spend a few minutes scheduling a meeting. So many services value your time at zero. How refreshing it would be if just one respected the value of your time. #
If Dems were any good at marketing we'd be turning a corner now, given what the Repubs have been doing the last few decades.#
- The rule: One way of doing something is better than two. #
- So when the language gets a new way of doing something that is only slightly better than the previous version, or not better at all, I always stick with the way I was doing it before. That way when reading the code I never have to wonder why did the author choose this way in one place and another way elsewhere.#
- Coding tricks is not why we program -- we program to create new utility, and to create something that is easy not to break when it needs maintenence. #
- It's very common and imho totally wrong to not adopt the conventions of code you're contributing to. #
- Another way of emphasizing prior art. #
- If you can get to zero ways of doing something that's way better than one, and way-way better than two or more. #
- There are exceptions. Sometimes they add a feature to a language that is so sensible you have to use it. For example, initial values for parameters to functions in JavaScript. Or not having to say name: name in an object definititon, just name will do. Another one, the forEach function in JavaScript is more sensible than the equalent for version.#
- See the rule in the standards-makers howto. It's the same idea.#
- Sometimes I don't have time to write a full prose version of a post, I think it's better to write the skeletal version rather than publish nothing at all.#